Tuesday, February 12, 2013

New riders of the purple sage-Keep on Keepin' on

Keep on Keeping on
In 1989, the Riders released their first album since 1981's Feelin' All Right called Keep On Keepin' On, first released on Mu Records and then reissued by Relix Records in 1992 and again complete on Relix's Best of the New Riders 2 cd set. In 1981, David Nelson and Buddy Cage split while Rusty Gauthier was added in their place on guitar, lap steel, fiddle and vocals. Rusty also contributed songs during this era. In 1985, Gary Vogensen was added on guitars and vocals. The New Riders during this era were: John Dawson, Rusty and Gary along with Greg Lagardo on drums and Michael White on bass. The Riders here are joined by friends and family members like former It's A Beautiful Day drummer Val Fuentes helping out.

The album itself is quite strong with a lot of the songs having been in the band's set lists for quite a while. The album starts off with John's charging Keep On Keepin' On which is follow by John's great Now I Call It Love. Rusty turns in It's O.K. To Cry and Bounty Hunter which are co written with Val and Lina Valentino. Bounty Hunter in particular would become a standard up into 1997. Next up, Joe New's Barbaric Splendor ends the first half of the album while John's Senorita starts the second half. The Johnson, New song Night of the Living Lonely is followed by John's, Rancher's Daughter. Rusty's Big Ed is nice and the album closes with a rousing Friend Of The Devil which was co written by John all those years ago. The album sounds well recorded but, unfortunately, both Mu and Relix Records didn't have the money to do great cd pressings so the sound quality was never quite as good as it could have been.

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